Domestic Bliss
by Dimitri A
Summary: A fic I wrote as a Christmas gift to Mechante Fille, my wonderful beta. JohnFlash, Slash For John falling for Wally is no where near as hard as telling him without running the risk of infalting his ego.


Domestic Bliss

Author: Dimitri Aidan

Rating: PG-13

Pairings: Wally/John

Warnings: Slash, Sap, Mild angst.

Notes: Mechante Fille's giftfic for Christmas, however belated. She decided she wanted to share with the world and who was I to tell her no, eh? If you like it be sure to leave the appropriate thanks.

Summery: John had thought caring about Wally would be the hard part. As it turns out letting him know that he cares is infinitely harder.

00000000000000000

Commitment

00000000000000000

John Stewart didn't think of himself as one of those guys who had problems expressing himself or was too wrapped up in his 'macho' tendencies to be able to appreciate the little things in life or stop to smell the flowers or…whatever it was that some people didn't do.

Still he found himself at a bit of a loss when it came to one Wally West. It wasn't unusual for John to completely bewildered and confused by Wally. Wally was very…there, was the best way John could think of to describe him. Everything he did was in full force and with barely any hesitation. He couldn't do anything halfway and while that often meant he didn't think things through to the end it also meant he was never missing out.

There was something about him that never ceased to leave John wanting to gasp for air and take a step back to think. He rarely did though. Thinking too much could make a person miss Wally and John found he didn't want to miss…anything.

Ever.

Not that John was overly possessive. He was just…properly concerned about people potentially harming something he'd decided was very much his. Okay. Maybe overly possessive. He couldn't really stop himself. It wasn't that he was protective or thought he needed to oversee everything (or even anything) that Wally did. He trusted the redhead to look after himself because Wally had more than proven, time and time again, that he wasn't some young kid who needed to have his hand held.

He had been a hero in his own right before the League, had been doing what he did for the better part of a decade, and had two cities he looked after without so much as faltering. If he ever so much as implied that Wally needed someone to protect him he wouldn't be able to blame the younger man for hauling off and decking him, because he'd deserve it.

So, no, it wasn't that John thought for half a second that Wally _needed_ him.

It was just that John had fallen in a big way. And maybe…in a strange kind of way that was backwards to the way he thought about things, he _needed_ Wally.

Which brought him to his current problem. Well, series of problems if you would. The first problem, most noticeably, was the fact he was sitting in the dark in his apartment staring at the spare key to his apartment he'd had made a few days ago. It'd been resting heavily in his jacket ever since, seeming to get heavier and heavier with each passing day.

He'd seen Wally a half-dozen times since then and while he'd like to blame the fact he was still holding the key on only seeing him for short periods of time, in between all of the chaos that was cropping up this week. Some computer genius, evil of course, had somehow hacked into ever major high-tech prison in the world and let loose pretty much everyone the League had put away.

Things like this were exactly why John was in favor of simple prisons with locks and guards who had to let prisoners out manually. Having all of those systems run by a computer that was at all fallible was just too risky for exactly this reason.

On top of all of that they still didn't know who had let the prisoners go and so even after they rounded them all up putting them back would be useless.

He knew that was bullshit though. He hadn't talked to Wally because he'd been too caught up in his own thoughts. John sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. He wasn't really a staring in the dark thinking heavily kind of guy. He left that to Batman, yet here he was anyone.

It was sickening.

It was just so damn…overtly depressing and he tried to refrain from such activities. John didn't like being depressed; unlike some heroes who ran on being depressed and disappointed and could never let anything resembling happiness into their lives.

Considering how often John's relationships crashed and burned he was very optimistic about such things. …Optimistic enough anyway. He could just see Wally laughing himself (more) senseless at the prospect of John being optimistic but he hadn't holed up in a cave with only a Martian and his butler for company and he didn't have a Fortress of Solitude in the Artic or anything like that at least, so in general League terms he liked to think he wasn't the most pessimistic person wandering around.

And so he didn't like to do the Batman and Superman type brooding if he could help it. It just wasn't his thing. He wasn't even very good at it.

But that's what he was doing. He turned the small piece of metal over and over in his hand, trying to think about what he was doing. He was going to ask Wally to move in with him. Or…at the very least give him a key to his apartment. (He didn't need the key really, what with the ability to pick locks that he had probably learned from Nightwing or Arsenal) It'd seemed like a fairly good idea at the time but now that he had the key he doubted things.

Logically it wasn't like Wally could just leave Keystone and Central City, he did have to protect it and everything. However, on that same logical note, it wasn't like he couldn't run from Coast City to Keystone in under five seconds.

He closed his fingers around the key and sighed. It wasn't really about the 'Hero' thing though and he knew that. It was more the way he did things. That brought him back to his earlier thoughts. He didn't think he was one of those desperately manly types, but when it came to Wally he never seemed able to be anything except sarcastic and smug and sometimes he didn't want to be like that. Especially now. He just…wanted to tell the other man how he felt.

It was just hard to approach and get any kind of read on Wally. He was just so…Wally seemed like he was all of three steps from drifting into the land of the officially insane, constantly rushing between extremes. John was good at reading enemies and allies and an attack strategy, but when it came to his relationship with Wally he just…shut down.

He had no idea what to do.

…True, he was like that with everyone he encountered but he sometimes thought that with Wally it should have been different. He was dangerously close to admitting, at least in the privacy of his own brain, that he more than just liked or lusted after Wally. That wasn't a problem, exactly. He wasn't really hung up on gender or morality or things like that; he'd always been attracted to Wally because he was Wally.

Mind you, the fact he wasn't hard on the eyes didn't have John upset or anything like that. He was pretty sure he could get over the fact that Wally was on the attractive end of the spectrum.

He wasn't stressing out because he was maybe in love with Wally, though that was part of his second problem. Well…it wasn't a problem per se, not for him anyway. For other people maybe. He and Wally weren't openly together, at least as far as most of the League knew. Not that they needed to be, least they become some kind of Gay Hero poster children, which was far from John's list of 'Things to become'.

He'd never really thought about it until the thought of making things more serious with Wally had sprung to mind. Would living together, assuming they did, mean that everyone would ultimately know? Did it mean they had to tell people? Or did it just mean he'd have to learn to live with a scatter-brained slob from now on?

While being exposed to people from other planets and things of that nature made the League more open minded than most places John would be stupid to assume that no one would have a problem. (Almost as stupid as someone who assumed that John would care if they had a problem) He didn't want to be the cause of any problems in the League, in a working together sense.

In a social sense…well, John was socially inept and kind of liked it that way. Wally was a fan of those who lived in a state of paranoia and had more important things to worry about than who their friend's slept with. Like the dangers of certain brands of toothpaste and whether or not the government could watch you through your TV.

John's lips twitched.

He really needed to get Wally the hell away from Question. They feed off of each other, in a conspiracy theory driven way and it was as annoying as it was amusing. Last week John had just barely saved a girl scout from an all out integration. Wally seemed to think the fact that they never had any Thin Mints left when they got around to him was a sign of deep and obvious evil. Apparently Question backed him up on this.

John had been forced to buy all that she had left to keep her from running and telling her mother. Wally had been all too happy to devour them in spite of the Thin Mints conspiracy. He could only imagine how the redhead acted when they was no one around to tell him he was being a raving lunatic and save small children from his insanity. He wondered if Huntress had a similar problem with Question…

He kind of doubted it. Wally had paranoia mixed with manic tendencies where as Question was crazy, but fairly mellow most of the time.

He looked over at the clock, noting that it was almost eight. If Wally remained true to form he'd be there soon, ready to pretend that they were a normal couple for a few moments. Sit around; watch some badly made horror movies while making fun of them until J'onn called them up for the latest emergency. Planning anything more than that, or even attempting anything, would just ensure they got interrupted at a point where they shouldn't be interrupted.

It was like clockwork really. If they sat around and did nothing they'd be left alone for hours (once a whole weekend had gone by. It had probably be one of the best weekends he could clearly remember) but if they attempted actual activities of any sort someone would decide to lose their minds and blow something up.

John liked to think he was coming to terms with and accepting that, though it proved to be nothing short of irksome at the best of times.

He looked down at the key again and was seriously considering just putting it back into his pocket yet again when he door blew open, shut, and a white plastic bag dropped onto the table in front of him. A blur of color that could only be Wally headed in the direction of his kitchen.

Of course.

John sat back to watch, arms crossed over his chest. Wally's chatter floated out to him after a few seconds.

"So I brought Zombie One, Two, Three, and Four, Zombie Lake, and Jesus Christ Vampire Slayer. It's a musical and I figure since we're doing that gay thing now we're obligated to like musicals or something and I figured that something with that title had to be worthwhile, you know?"

"…Where do you find these movies?"

"My secret." Wally peered out of the kitchen suddenly, frowning. "Why are you sitting in the dark? Are you having a Batman moment because there is really nothing quite as not sexy as you when you start acting like Bruce."

John made a dismissive gesture. "I'm always sexy Wally, don't be stupid."

This earned him a big slightly goofy grin. "Of course you are man."

With that he was back in the kitchen and, if the sounds were any indication, rummaging around in his cupboards. John forced himself up and, dropping the key into a never used ashtray, walked in to find that Wally was doing just that. Jeans and a t-shirt, bright red hair fanning over pale skin and obvious freckles…this is how John liked Wally best. Flash had his good points of course, but it was Wally that John really cared for.

John smiled slightly then walked over to open the freezer, knowing exactly what would keep Wally from turning his kitchen into a war zone. Wally's head snapped around then his eyes grew wide as he saw what John was pulling out.

He held it out and Wally took it, almost bouncing. "Chocolate Cherry Chunk and Carmel Swirl. Confess, you love me, there is no hiding it anymore." It took a real effort to not smile and instead roll his eyes.

"I bought you ice cream. It must be love."

"Or kink. It could always be kink." Wally opened the drawer and pulled out a spoon. "It kind of depends on what else you have in there. Whipped cream perhaps." John just arched an eyebrow. "Or maybe just good old fashioned unselfish trying to get in my pants. Because…my favorite ice cream. I'll pretty much have to put out now."

"I didn't know I was still trying." Wally paused in his attempt to get the plastic strip off of the carton.

"Wow. Is the romance dead so quickly? That's really disappointing. I didn't even get flowers! I'm entitled to flowers and…wooing. I demand it."

John snorted and after grabbing a beer walked back into his living room. Wally followed a few moments later, ice cream and a bag of chips in hand. He dropped more on top of John than on the couch and he just moved to accommodate the other man's weight.

"Sooo. What're we watching? I hear Zombie Lake is fully of utterly pointless female nudity and that you can actually see the lines and numbers of the pool they use as the Lake. It's also almost totally nonsensical, so I was thinking of saving it to watch with Roy and Dick."

"Mmhmm. Need a new drinking game movie?"

"Yeah." Wally claimed that the only movies that didn't have a plot you might consider following made proper drinking movies, otherwise you were too wasted to follow said plot and got mad later. "Satan's Children got boring. Satan wasn't even in it, what kind of movie is that?"

"The horror." John said while using the arm Wally wasn't using as a pillow to grab the bag.

"I know." Wally said empathetically, waving his spoon for emphasis. "It's tragic really; that's why we're going back to Zombie. We should have never forsaken them."

John just nodded and pulled Zombie from the bag. He handed it to Wally who was up and putting it in a second later. He turned on the TV then sat back down, leaning against John as he did.

"You never answered my question, why the sitting in the dark?"

"I was thinking."

"Dangerous activity that is." Wally muttered while tilting his head back to get a better look at him. "Thinking in the dark, not thinking in general."

John smiled slightly. "Of course."

"So, are you going to share these deep thoughts of yours?" John looked at Wally then looked over at the TV where a lone policeman was venturing into the bowels of an abandoned ship where he would surely be eaten and killed. In that order.

"Movie interpretations of the police really don't do them justice."

"Dumb cops are two shots." Wally stared for a moment longer then John felt his shrug. He reached for his ice cream, which had found the table when he'd stood up. Halfway there his hands wavered and went towards the ashtray. He did have a tendency to go for shiny objects so John couldn't even feign surprise over it.

"Why is there a key in the ashtray that will never be used because you hate the idea of people smoking in your apartment?"

"So you'll stop picking my locks and I can stop leaving my door unlocked."

"Oh." Wally picked it up and dug a key chain out of the pocket of his jacket. He sat up for a moment, sliding the key on, putting the chain back into his pocket, and sliding the jacket off before tossing it onto the table. "Was the lady across the hall whining again?"

"It's not whining to tell me that she saw a 'young man breaking into my apartment', it's being a good neighbor and no. Though that's a valid enough reason."

"Nosy. I mean, I'm sleeping with you on a semi-regular bases, and if not for the saving the world thing it'd be regular-"

"Your concept of regular frightens me. Not all of us are 24 you realize."

Wally's lips twitched but other than that he gave no indication that he was listening. John wasn't surprised. "And if I want to break into your apartment to retrieve some of my things or because I'm too lazy to run home or just feel like making a mess and watching you get mad later, then I'm certainly entitled to do such."

John smirked. "If you say so."

"I do. I'd tell her that if you didn't insist I not talk to your neighbors." Wally looked almost scandalized and John didn't have the heart to tell him that because Wally would say such things was the reason John didn't want him talking to neighbors. Wally was quiet for a moment then tilted his head to one side. "You know this means you'll never be able to get rid of me don't you? I have permission now."

"It's a good thing I don't particularly want to then isn't it?" Wally smiled slowly, eyebrow going up slightly and John was almost afraid to ask what was going on in his mind. "It's not as if you don't have your good traits and I don't like having you around. Or that you aren't always here or in my room at the tower anyway."

"Batman's been threatening to turn my room into something more useful than a really big closet." Wally said with a hint of laughter in his voice. "I tried to tell him you don't want me in your rooms all the time, bugging you."

"Mmhmm."

"Because, you know, cohabitation is a big step and people shouldn't be forced into by broody co-workers who are bitter because they aren't getting any."

John sighed. "How long do you think you're going to be talking?"

"Oh…at least another five minutes. This amuses me; for all your whining about me being nothing but trouble and how you should just get rid of me, you want me here."

Wally could be a pain in the ass. "Give me my key back."

Wally pulled away and smirked widely. "Fuck no. It's too late now! You've all but admitted that you want me here John, you want to get all domestic with me. Admit it, you care. There is no turning back at this point."

He was right of course. If John was far enough gone to allow this kind of thing, then there was absolutely no turning back for him. Wally had him, even if he didn't really know it yet.

"God help me." John deadpanned. Wally wasn't fazed in the least and instead kept smiling at him. "What now?"

"Should we get matching towels? His and His?"

Wally was obviously very amused and John knew he'd brought it on himself. He should have just tossed the key at his head next time they were on their way out. It would have been easier of his ego. Still it was always nice to watch Wally in a good mood, he could be damn temperamental a lot of the time.

And, for the sake of keeping Wally in his good mood he put up with another five minutes of playful teasing and then Wally once again stretched out with him, resorting to idly picking apart the movie with John's help.

"John?"

"Hmm?"

"You do really want me around don't you?" A glance down found Wally still focused on the TV screen but he had no doubt where the younger man's full attention was. John didn't think of Wally as young, even though in comparison he certainly was just that, but something about the almost worried way he was biting his lip combined with the soft glow of the TV on his face, all pale skin and freckles, made him look almost…innocent.

You'd never know what kind of mind lurked in there just by looking at him.

"For as long as you want to be here."

Wally was silent for a moment then he leaned up and sealed his lips against John's and so John wrapped an arm around him and held him closer.

John was pretty sure this was the closest to domestic bliss he'd ever been. He wasn't sure if that was good or depressing. He let his fingers drift over Wally's arm and banished his thoughts, trying to just enjoy the moment.

It'd be over soon enough without him thinking about it so much.

000000000000

All of the movies Wally listed are real and are owned by a friend of mine. They're fun to watch, if for no other reason than to watch all of my friends get wasted while playing the drinking game. I'm always 'driver guy' so even if I did drink they wouldn't let me.


End file.
